discordant_harmonyfandomcom-20200215-history
Ursula's Historic Newsreels
Ursula puts on some show reels. Show reels, as it turns out, seems to be some sort of really noisey machine that projects light onto the white curtain. Very fastly cycled still images to give the illusion of movement and music/voice alongside it. (Think proper old movie theatre style) A man with a Very Enthusiastic Voice declares the year to be Nineteen Hundred and the first portable artificial intelligence to have been created in the 'United States of America'. Theres a video image that shows a very simple robotic humanoid, very boxy and not very agile at all. It goes on at great length about the utility and future of 'mobile robotics' - how the Robot is the perfect manservant and maid, never tiring and being vastly more efficient in a variety of roles allowing human workers for more important jobs such as art and scientific advancement. The next showreel shows a few years later, with a slightly more advanced looking model. more rounded and with much more efficient actuators. A different but just as enthusiastic voice declares that the first robot able to think and feel with synthetic 'Almost Real' emotions has hit the market. Theres an interview with a robot asking questions about its opinions on art and about humans. The next showreel is a brief one of several months afterwards, showing how well the new 'Robots with Personality' are doing on the market, how they have now basically rendered older models obsolete and that the sales of these robots sparking a whole new economy in robot based affairs The next reel changes in tone entirely. Apparantly several months after the last reel, a very similar looking robot to the one being interviewed previously being bundled into a hover-car with 'Chicago PD' blazoned on the side, talking about the first instance of robot crime where this robot killed its owner by bashing his head in with an end table. Theres another reel cut in with a debate about wether an object can really commit a crime or wether its should be considered an accident. Theres then another reel cut in with the robot that had killed its owner being dismantled and its CPU destroyed. The next reel details several months afterwards and is an expose on Robot vandalism - with human gangs attacking robots in the street and dismantling/destroying them. The reason? Robots are taking our jobs. Several men who are clearly workmen talk passionately about the layoffs that have been occuring since feeling robots hit the workforce, since as belongings they don't require a wage. The next reel details the first Robot protest. Robots demanding human rights with plastic placards with slogans on them. More cut-ins about scientists and government officials discussing the rise of robot-related crimes from both humans (Destruction of property) and robots (A variety of things such as public disturbance with protests, murder, things like that). The whole thing heavily paints robots with a 'they arn't people' vibe. If 'Robot' was a race, this would be incredibly racist. A year later, the next reel explains, Robots have moved on from Protesting to rioting. Still over robotic rights to not be treated as property that can be shut down when its owner wants, rights to a wage, rights for robots to buy robots. One passionate young politician (A chap by the name of Seymour Wayland) speaks very well thought out arguements about 'Synthetic Life' and the 'Right to Exist, not the Right to Live'. Another reel declares that anti-robot hate crimes have now spread to humans with Cybernetic enhancements - A very popular choice for young americans after their birth to give them a head start on life a decade ago. Parents would sign a waver and their children would go under the knife to have their skeletal structure, various organs or even entire synaptic re-working done to them. More arguements from clever people and politicians about 'How human is human?' and 'How robotic is robot?'. In the year 1910, the next reel declares, civil war on the streets of america. The country is split not just down the Anti and Pro robot lines but in the government as well. Some government wants things to go back to the way they were - Robots as Servile class. Some government wants the removal of the robots ability to think and feel autonomously removed entirely. A small part of the government however is both Pro Robot AND Pro human. The leader of this group of Democrats is a still relatively young Seymour Wayland. There follows a LOT of war propaganda from both sides. Robots right to Freedom. Humanities right to being on top. Lots of very moving stuff, but ultimately rendered null by the people actually fighting the war. Children get moved from the cities out to the countryside to avoid the conflicts. Bodies pile up in the streets - some metal, some flesh. Then cuts in another reel - one that Ursula would have had to dig really hard to find. Its not really a news reel as such, more the attempts of one journalist to detail a very strange union between man and machine. See, when a war splits a country no-one profits. Except for Criminals. And this is the undercover account of one journalist in a smokey little bar in downtown chicago that was frequented by the mob. It starts off mostly how you would expect it to. Guy getting checked by a doorman as he walks into what looks like a sci-fi speakeasy. Except... the bartender is a robot. And this other bartender working with him? He's human. And they're laughing - really pally pally. Ursula recognises the guy (no more then in his 20's at this point) as Salvador Zambini - who up until his violent drive-by-shooting last year was the Capo of the Zambini crime family and the Robot as 'Buggy' MA1ONE, his Consiglierie. Its a real rowdy place, full of Jazz and Liquor and girls getting scantily clad up on a stage. And damn it, every man here is probably a criminal. Including the robots. Yeah, robots. Wearing suits and pulled down loose around necks that wouldn't have felt uncomfortable. Its like a whole world where the war didn't exist. Robots and Humans together and just... having a good time. Albeit, as a crime family having a night off, but still having a good time. And thats when the journalist spots a very young girl on stage. Can't be more then 14 or 15 but allready 'fully' developed and a worn kind of look to her eyes. Nervous as hell and with a very high pitched voice and not much else on save a fur coat. Up to the microphone she goes and... she has the voice of an absolute angel. Its clear that theres some akward silence from the fact that thats clearly a very, very young girl up there but BOY does that dame have pipes. http://youtu.be/3163npbvcC0 And its Ginger. Jesus Christ, its actually Ginger. The next reel declares a sort of military detente between the national army and the revolutionist militias, neither willing to push nor give up ground anymore. Its just like they'd been fighting so long on both sides the fire had just gone out from under them. The reel just after that shows electoral candidates giving speeches about their proposals for the years ahead. End to the war this, reforms that, robots bad, robots good servants, no more robots, minor robot rights... wah, wah. wah. Not a single one talking about robots as equals. Except for one man. One man who had slowly gained the support of not only the robots and robot sympathisers but even had swayed some of the Anti-robot sentiment brigade on side. Seymour Wayland. "My Ferro-Americans." He starts his speech. It was the statement that built a new country in the years to come after the war had ended. He hadn't adressed them as robots. He hadn't adressed them as robots with the same rights as humans. He'd adressed them as americans. As equals. "My Ferro-Americans. Because that is what you are. American." "We stand on a precipice, today. A precipice which could lead to the fall of this great nation if we do not do something about this together. I am not going to offer you false promises, I am not going to tell you that I can end all predjudice amongst the people of this great nation. If I am elected, I will change this country to one where Equality is an ideal, not simply a word." And then, Seymour Wayland was violently shunted aside... Just as the report of an energy rifle sounded, and the figure that had just slammed the man-who-would-be-president went down as the bolt burnt through its shoulder. The showreel gets kinda hectic at that point, and the voice over declares that a member of Seymour's staff had seen the sniper before anyone else had and in an act of heroic selflessness had taken the shot for the man. The voiceover continues to explain that the mysterious saviour has still to this day not been identified and that the sniper had been paid off by a politician associated with the at-the-time president of america. And the final showreel is clearly the kind of thing that would be shown in a school recent history lesson, of Seymour Wayland becoming the President of the United states of america and within months giving 'Ferro Americans' the same rights and priveledges as any other citizen of the united states of america - the right to vote, the right to bear arms, freedom of speech... The reel shows the first robot members of the whitehouse security, the first robot politicians, the first robots accepted into the police force... And that pretty much brings things up to speed. 4 years after that, Wayland was kept in office as the president and now halfway through THOSE four years of presidency brings us to today. Robot hate crimes still exist of course, but from the far right and fringe groups rather than common people.